Monday, March 15, 2010

African American Homeschool Mamas

I gotta tell ya, being a minority within a minority is really hard. Why? Only a person that is, or at least thinks they are, part of the majority would ask such a question. When it is "Black History Month", I want to go with other people that understand the looks of pity, that some people give when the tour guide mentions slavery. I want to be around people that share the same history and background as I do so that we can teach our children accurate history rather than the same 3 famous African Americans (Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Harriet Tubman) and slavery. I don't want you child hair molesting my child because my child's hair is the polar opposite of your child's hair. It is also hard to be a minority within a minority that is within yet another minority because I am what is considered to be a African American secular homeschooler. I have experienced firsthand that not all groups that say "all are welcome" mean it. I can't honestly say if it was my skin or that I didn't belong to the church that apparently they all belonged to, but I drove 30 minutes to a park day where the people wouldn't talk to me and their kids totally ignored my children. For the record, my children are very hard to ignore. All that to say, I found one homeschool Mama online in a group that lives here and I met another at a birthday party. Although my children attended school with the second Mama's children, we had never formally met. Anyhoo, apparently I needed to vent and express my joy in finding other Afrikan Mamas in the area. Now, I hope that we actually have something in common.

4 comments:

Came across your blog today and I'm so excited to find it!! I would LOVE to add it to our growing list of secular blogs at my website: www.secularhomeschool.com! If you would be willing, would you mind dropping me an email at info@secularhomeschool.com?? Thanks!!! Keep on blogging!!!

BLACK HISTORY MONTH?! My children will never know about that since we only study OURstory. It is harder to connect outside of the internet...I worried more about that when i had just one (very social) child, now that i have two, at least they have each other to play with.

Oh wow sis, I totally feel your emotions on this one. I am always seeming to be the odd one out. I just recently started feeling like this with the local groups in my area. But luckly I have finally taped into the other mothers of color who are stay at home homeschoolers. I do have to drive at least 30- 45 minutes away to get to most of the events but you know it is worth it for my children to have friends that look like them and school like them. I don't want them to get use to it being all one way all the time. I mean I didnt have as negative a reaction as you experience but I did start to feel like I had less and less in common with the other caucasion moms in the group.